Beauty and Horror (Colombia)

Sean filed his last post from Colombia today before he and Andrea return to the U.S.:

"So we did our last field trip yesterday - a three hour drive out of Pasto to
the town of Samaniego. The road was a crazy trip through winding roads up
and down the Andes. Going up and down thousands of feet at a time on potholed
roads makes for challenging driving.

Thankfully, the scenery made up for it - these are some of the most beautiful
mountains I have ever seen. The mountains touch the clouds, and on a day
with blue skies like yesterday, it really did feel like being on the ceiling of
the world. The mountains are an emerald green patchwork of small farms,
and it's amazing to see the valleys plunge thousands of feet below you to rise
again into the next mountain. Just as beautiful was the fact that
everything seemed to be in bloom - the mountains were studded everwhere with
huge trees blooming with yellow flowers. It looked like specks of gold
dotting the hillsides everwhere. And there were flowers of every color
along the road with butterflies and birds all around. When we would
descend a mountain, you'd find rushing streams that were lush with tropical
plants, really making it feel like a hidden paradise.

As I said, the scenery made up for the nausea-inducing drive!

What really is sad about all of this is that we got to the town of Samaniego
and you could cut the tension with a knife. There are two rebel groups on
one side of the town, two paramilitary groups on the other side of town, and
army forces in the town. The frontlines of fighting were only two hours
away, and they were counting the number of murders in town (8 over the weekend)
and land mine victims (one person every two days) with great trepidation that it
would get worse. There was a general resignation that war was about to
overrun their region.

We went to meet a community of displaced people who had arrived there on
Thursday of last week, but we were told that they had returned to their homes on
Monday. The horror of all this is that they were told to leave their town
by armed actors, so they did. Then they were told that they could
return. What they weren't told is that their town has been converted into a
battlefield, and that their farms have been littered with landmines. This
makes it impossible for them to work, or to even leave their homes once they get
there. As a result, these populations become trapped, and even more
vulnerable than before. It was the general consensus that things would
only get worse in the upcoming months."

I promise we'll keep you posted on Sean and Andrea's efforts to help this community and the other displaced people in Colombia.